The Sense Of Comfort

Creaky doors,
dark wood,
heavy old quilts,
I can hear rain.

Here, I am safe.
I am warm.
I belong.
My nook of the world.

Every Night

I lay in my soft bed.
Sinking in.
I prepare myself for the death
of the night.

The death of my unconsciousness.

The nothingness
covers me
and I travel
in my death.

Passage From My Novel

            The orange cat screeches to be let out as a man with thinning hair guzzles a Miller Lite then crushes the empty beer can in his hand. He lets out a loud burp that lasts a few seconds. The cat looks up at him, un-amused and meows again in a hostile manner.

            "Alright, alright you mongrel." he mumbles and opens the screen door which has several small holes in it. It is pitch black outside.

            He sits back down in a worn reclining chair in front of an old television. What he doesn't know is that Tom has been waiting inside his house for hours. The time hasn't bothered Tom. Adrenaline shoots through his veins. His mind is racing.

            Tom creeps up behind the man. A corny commercial for an auto dealership plays on the television. The man scratches at his gut.

            "Come on down!" The TV screams jarringly to Tom's ears. Tom slips the needle into the man's neck and injects him with shaking hands. The man is woozy before he can even notice anyone else is there.

            "Shit." The man slaps at his neck but Tom is swift and steps back with the now used needle. "Something must've bit me." The man's words start to slur as the tranquilizer takes effect. Within a minute he is out cold.

            Tom takes off his black skiing mask and slaps the man to make sure he's really out. A smile of pure evil creeps onto his face. He takes out a pair of pliers and pulls one of the man's teeth out.

----

            The man is drugged and Trevor puts him into the room. Everyone sits watching through the thick glass, above the room. Fifteen minutes pass and he still hasn't woken up.

            Ashley sits clinging to Trevor's arm. Georgia is staring at the wall and her gaze directly avoids the view of the room. Tom is sitting with his head propped up on his hands, his elbows on his knees. He is as close to the glass as he can get.

            "Hey babe, you okay?" Tom turns and notices Georgia. He brushes her hair out of her face.

            "I took like fifteen bong rips. I can't deal with your psycho shit unless I'm high." She turns to him and her eyes are bright red.

            "Come on. This guy deserves it. And besides who knows he could die tomorrow in a car crash or from a heart attack." Ashley says.

            "Yeah look at that fat-ass pedophile." Trevor says, squeezing Ashley's arm, surprised at how skinny it is.

            "I hate this. How do you know he deserves this? I don't want to watch."

            "I checked online. This guy is a child molester. He got off on a technicality, the cops fucked up." Forrest says.

            "That doesn't mean he deserves this." Georgia tries to reason.

            "Um, I checked his phone. He had pictures of naked five year olds."

            The man below slowly awakens. He's groggy and looks completely confused.

            "Should we tell him what's going on?" Trevor asks Tom.

            "I mean we can if we want to. I have an intercom button on this." Tom holds up the remote he had specially made with all the features of the room. "I don't know though. It might be more fun to surprise him."

            A classic rock n roll song starts playing both in the viewing room and the room below as Tom presses a button. All eyes, even Georgia's, are fixed on the man.

            The man has been scaling the walls trying to find an escape. He has no idea where he is. But he knows waking up in an all white room with a door with no visible way of opening it is not a good sign. He can't remember being drugged. The last he can recall he was in his car about to leave the bar.

            The music starts to play and the man looks around to see where it's coming from. Then the silver doors open like an elevator and there is Viduss. The man is like a deer in headlights. It comes down to prey and predator.

            "What the fuck is fucking going?" The man screams, "Is this a sick joke?"

            "Viduss' eyes are focused on the man. His nose is sniffing his scent, his flesh. The lion slowly walks forward. The doors close behind him as Tom presses a button. The man pisses himself as Viduss gets closer. He is huge and the look in his eye, his behavior, tells him that this creature considers him food.

            "Look! The fucker pissed himself!" Trevor exclaims.

            "Can you turn off the sound from the room? I'd rather not hear his screaming and his bones being broken." Georgia says.

            "Yeah. I think that's a little too much for me too. The blood alone is going to make me queasy." Ashley says.

            Georgia's heart is racing. The adrenaline is making her head woozy. She can feel the fruit juice she's drinking sticky on her tongue. She can feel her heart beat and feel her skin grow clammy.

            "Pussies." Tom sneers but he turns the sound off anyway. The sound from the room is turned off and all they can hear is the music. It turns out to be perfect timing because a half a minute later Viduss pounces and goes in for the man's throat. Tom smirks.

----

            After Viduss is done with the unsettling part of killing the man he begins the only slightly less unsettling process of eating him. The others leave the room but Tom stays his eyes intensely watching. Viduss gnaws on the leg. The body is beginning to be unrecognizable. All the goopy white fat and flab disgusts Tom. The pedophile has been reduced to nothing more than muscle and blood, nothing more than a mash of organs and bones.

            Viduss eats nearly all of the man. He is stuffed and walks back slowly to his lair, his home. Tom closes the metal door after him. He walks down the staircase leading to the room and puts on a plastic body suit and rubber gloves. He opens the door. The raw scent of blood and gore surprises him. He has never been around a body this mangled before. It is surreal.

            Tom packages the rest of the body that he knows Viduss will eat. Those will go into the freezer for a later meal. Then there is nothing but bones and the mangled head left. He puts those into a body bag. The floor is entirely crimson. Blood is everywhere.

            Tom stands a moment to admire it then he takes the hose from the hallway dragging it into the room and begins spraying the floor clean. The blood disappears down the drain in the middle of the room. When he is done it looks like nothing ever happened. He plays the tooth in his pocket, rolling it between his fingers.